Weicker, The GOP’s Ahab

“Connecticut Commentary,” as usual, anticipated former U.S. Senator and Governor Lowell Weicker’s remarks on WNPR by nearly a week.

On May 9, Don Pesci addressed Republicans in Westbrook and mentioned Mr. Weicker at some length:

“Both Mr. Weicker and Mr. Malloy are progressives. At the root of progressivism lies the sundering notion that if government is good, more government must be better. From here it is but a baby step to the equally absurd notion that government is the state. In fact, the state is all of us, the government merely an administrative apparatus designed, if you credit the U.S. and State Constitutions, to accomplish our reason informed will. Mr. Weicker, whose ego as U.S. Senator and Governor was infinitely expansive, took this absurd logic a step further and regarded himself as the state. I should like to call your attention to the hopeful tense in that last sentence: Mr. Weicker was, he regarded– past tense: There is a God.


 “But it never hurts to remind ourselves that there is a Devil too. 

“From time to time, Mr. Weicker shows up, most often at WNPR or in the op-ed section of the Courant, to advise Republicans what they must do to become a majority party. You will never guess: They must field candidates like Mr. Weicker. But these days only progressives pay him much mind...”

Mr. Weicker ought to have retired from politics -- eighteen years of which he spent as a Republican U.S. Senator -- an honored elder statesman whose opinions on his party should have been taken with less than a ton of salt. That did not happen, largely because Mr. Weicker thought it politically useful to define himself as a maverick within his own party. In this he was extraordinarily successful, and when a parting of the ways became necessary, no tears were shed within Republican ranks when Mr. Weicker retired from politics for good, shortly after he, as governor, had imposed an income tax on his state.

Connecticut’s slow and painful decent into a reckless spending ditch began with the Weicker income tax. Connecticut is now the only state in the union that has experienced negative job growth. Maverickism does have a dark side. It also has a bright side, at least for Mr. Weicker. Connecticut’s state Republican Party is Mr. Weicker’s  President Richard “You won’t have me to kick around anymore” Nixon. Even though Mr. Weicker’s notions of what is best for his cast off party are irrelevant to most Republicans, the maverick who once fittingly described himself as “the turd in the Republican Party punchbowl” will always have his version of Republicanism to kick around.  In pronouncing his party irrelevant, Mr. Weicker hardly noticed that his state party’s irrelevance coincided rather neatly with Mr. Weicker’s nineteen year reign as the nominal head of Connecticut’s GOP.

These bull bellowings are a little sad. Mr. Weicker is stuck in a time-warp groove: He repeats himself, and repeats himself, and repeats himself… No one, other than a few aged and crusty Jacob Javits Republicans or Democratic politicians eternally grateful for the Weicker income tax and the expansion of spending it occasioned pay him much heed these days.

Mr. Weicker’s views are set in mental concrete and do not change with the times.  As a U.S. Senator and the nominal head of his state party, Mr. Weicker favored opening his party’s nominating convention to non-Republicans, thus weakening the stranglehold on the state GOP of non-maverick, loyal Republicans. He now favors blowing up the nominating conventions altogether, because nominating conventions are, like all things Republican, irrelevant.  

When Teddy Roosevelt retired from politics, he shot a few water buffaloes in Africa. Mark Twain wrote up Roosevelt’s post presidential adventure as a mass slaughter of cows. Former President Jimmy Carter built housing for the poor and wrote books no one reads. Ronald Reagan, stricken with Alzheimer’s, retired to his ranch to await with his usual good humor the grim reaper. George Bush the younger took up painting and manfully restrained himself from commenting upon the idiocies of his successor.

There really is a life after politics. But not for Mr. Weicker. Like some raving Ahab, he has strapped himself to his own White Whale with his own harpoon lines, the victories and defeats of times past.  He and the whale, a metaphorical substitute for thwarted ambition, will go down together. Supported by the Republican Party in his state for nearly two decades in Congress, Mr. Weicker has no use for nominating conventions or political parties. The depth of his ingratitude is boundless, almost blasphemous.

When Starbuck in Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick” accuses Ahab of blasphemy, the old puritan cries out, “Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me.”

On the last day, when the angels finally call Mr. Weicker, he will go out with a snarl on his lips and a curse against the fictional devils in his past he has not been able to exorcise. The moment will not be recorded by WNPR.

Foley Charges Partly Vindicated By Critic

There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea -- T.S. Elliot

Kevin Rennie, a Harford Courant columnist, is regarded by some in politics as the Torquemada of Connecticut commentators – especially in matters of what one might call political ethics. Many politicians have felt his bite and winced.

After an appearance on WFSB’s “Face the State” with Dennis House, Tom Foley, who is expected in the near future to announce his bid for governor on the Republican Party ticket, had much to wince at.

In the most recent Rennie column, Mr. Foley was still mercilessly flailed – “Foley served a dog's breakfast to viewers in his return as a candidate for governor. Foley was a flailing amateur. He's been unable to provide proof for some of his allegations, despite claiming they met some journalistic standard that lives a solitary life in Foley's head” – but into this whipping crept a softer tone.

One of Mr. Foley’s supposed boneheaded allegations was that the relationship between Governor Dannel Malloy’s former media liaison and flack catcher, Roy Occhiogrosso, and Connecticut crony capitalist head of state was unseemly, profitable to them both and unethical under the standard of ethics embraced by Jesus Christ -- even though the bi-profitable relationship was perfectly legal. A transcription of Mr. Foley’s remarks may be found here at “Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes From A Blue State.”

In the course of his “Face the State” interview, Mr. Foley noted that he was relying on multiple reliable sources who wished to remain anonymous, after which he spoke the fatal words: “But these are all things that have been told to me by more than one reliable source, and so it meets a journalistic standard.”

The intake of breath among Connecticut scriveners was audible from New London to Hartford. One could smell brimstone in the air: Who does he think he is, Woodward or Bernstein? These were the two renowned reporters who, relying at the beginning of their investigation chiefly on a single reliable source, “Deep Throat,” finally shoved Tricky Dick Nixon off the political stage? “Deep Throat” remained anonymous for decades after the Nixon putsch, finally outing himself just before he kicked the bucket.

The gauntlet thrown down to Connecticut’s media by Mr. Foley – just investigate this stuff – has now been taken up in part by Mr. Rennie.

And the result is a softer, more gentle Rennie:

“This is state government, so there's always money to be found for friends, no matter what the condition of the economy. I overstated the case last week when I wrote that the contract to Global Strategies had been awarded by competitive bid (emphasis mine).

“Three insiders at Access Health CT invited three public relations companies to submit proposals for the lucrative contract. They did not open the process to the many firms that could meet the basic requirements of a public relations contract whether with innovative or stale ideas. The insiders included former Enfield Democratic state Rep. Kathleen Tallarita, Access Health CT's head of government relations and communications. In 2012, Tallarita became the rare suburban legislator to lose her seat in a party primary.”

This sort of thing happens frequently in Connecticut politics: Backs are scratched; friends are rewarded, enemies punished. Good investigative reporters occasionally uncover dubious, possibly unethical practices when a gored enemy plops a story on their desks. These sources are generally given protective anonymity as the reporter turns over a few rocks and examines the hitherto undisclosed swarm of ethical muck beneath them.

In a one party state, the possibility of such disclosures is markedly reduced. And there is no reporter in the state who does not now know that Connecticut has crossed the bar: The state’s entire U.S. Congressional Delegation is solidly Democratic; the Democratic Party boasts in Mr. Malloy its first Democratic governor in more than two decades; the state’s General Assembly is solidly Democratic. We know from the history we do not wish to repeat that the one party state is more successfully corrupt than the state that has an active two party system in which political power is evenly and justly shared. It’s what you think you know for certain and don’t that kills you. In a one party state the rocks are larger and more immovable.

Moving the rock that seals the tomb requires a media that is unflinchingly non-partisan, alert, energetic and courageous.

Life After Politics

Former Connecticut U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman has shown that there is life after politics.

The usual route for departing Beltway politicians is to associate themselves with a large law firm in some lobbying or quasi-lobbying capacity, thereby softening for the clients of the firm the burdensome laws and regulations they had so assiduously created as congressman.

Former U.S. Senator Chis Dodd managed to escape the mold somewhat when, after having left the Congress, he hitched his star to Hollywood. The author of the imponderable Dodd-Frank bill, so compendious that we still don’t know “what’s in it,” to borrow a phrase from Mr. Dodd’s compatriot in Congress, former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Dodd is now busily engaged in attempting to convince his former associates to do something – anything! – about Chinese violations of U.S. copyright laws. Since former President Richard Nixon first touched glasses with mass murderer Chairman Mao Zedong in Beijing in 1972, the Chinese have busied themselves by stealing American technology and hacking into pretty much any business in the United States that may survive the Dodd-Frank boa constrictor.

Mr. Lieberman’s route is the more traditional one. After bidding goodbye to a Senate that has over the years become much less civil than it was when Mr. Lieberman first entered it from his position as Attorney General of Connecticut, a pathway also followed by U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal, Mr. Lieberman has added his senatorial luster to Kasowitz Benson Torres & Friedman, a firm that has in it 365 attorneys nationwide and is ranked 120 on the The National Law Journal's annual headcount survey.

Mr. Lieberman who, according to The Legal Times blog,  joined the firm as special council focusing on internal investigations and regulatory policy, has carried along with him Clarine Nardi Riddle,  who has joined the same firm as counsel and will lead its government affairs practice. Ms. Riddle served as a Judge of the Connecticut Superior Court, Connecticut’s trial court of general jurisdiction, where she presided over cases involving criminal, foreclosure, zoning, juvenile, and residential and commercial housing matters. Ms. Riddle was also an Attorney General in Connecticut from 1989 to 1991 and has been for many years Chief of Staff for former Senator Lieberman. She co-founded No Labels, an organization of Democrats, Republicans and Independents devoted to breaking partisan gridlock in Washington DC. Mr. Lieberman, denied the Democratic nomination of his state party for the U.S. Senate in 2006, handily defeated his challenger Ned Lamont in the general election and rejoined the Senate as an Independent. Mr. Lieberman announced his resignation at the end of his term. He was succeeded by Chris Murphy, who has shown himself to be much more progressive and far more partisan than Mr. Lieberman.

Not that progressive Democrats in Connecticut have much to worry about; the Republican Party in the state has been effectively marginalized and the state’s left of center media tends to make a fuss only when one of its own prized concerns is roughed up in the back ally of Democratic partisan politics.

Freedom of information appears to have taken a hit recently; in the absence of effective Republican oversight in the General Assembly, some few legislative rats infested last-minute General Assembly bills; in a frantic effort to balance a chronically out of balanced budget fashioned in the partisan smithy of the Governor Dannel Malloy SEBAC combine, the General Assembly has legalized Keno, causing one left of center commentator to comment caustically: “We're all used to what they laughably call a process: Any time they want to do something repugnant, they blow off their rule book, slam the door on anyone who might fuss and pass some abomination before it can get press coverage. The Republican minority, most of the time, is an agreeable Vichy regime.”

But these are easily ignored inconvenient and temporary eruptions. No one within the one party state is much interested in backward looking grumblers who may impede the forward inevitable march of history. Bill Buckley’s war whoop that it is the business of lovers of liberty to stand athwart history shouting “Stop” is but a distant  memory. Without a permanent and vigorous opposition, the present regime will continue to map Connecticut’s future. Onward to Utopia!   

Donovan, DeLuca And the Moral Obligations Of The General Assembly

Republican Senate Minority Leader John McKinney called upon Democratic Speaker of the House Chris Donovan to relinquish his position as Speaker following the arrest of his former finance chairman, Robert Braddock, for having concealed the identity of a donor, likely an FBI plant, who wanted to kill tax legislation on “roll your own” cigarette businesses in Connecticut.

Pointing to an affidavit used to secure the arrest of Mr. Braddock, Mr. Kinney said, “The facts and allegations in the affidavit are a grave violation of the public trust and cast a pall on all of the legislative activities Speaker Donovan has participated in since announcing his run for the U.S. Congress in the 5^th District,” a fairly damning assessment.

For his part, Mr. Donovan temporarily turned over the usufructs of his office to colleague Brendan Sharkey, who is expected to be appointed Speaker after Mr. Donovan’s term ends, and he has refused a call from one of his Democratic primary opponents, Dan Roberti, to step down as Speaker. After an exhilarating union rally in Hartford, Mr. Donovan pledged to carry forward his congressional campaign. Mr. Donovan’s defiance puts one in mind of former President Richard Nixon’s remark, even as Watergate was rising to his knees, that he was “not a crook.”

Two other Democratic congressional contenders vying for Senator Joe Lieberman’s soon to be vacant seat, former Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz and present U.S. Representative Chris Murphy, have made precious few comments concerning the arrest of Mr. Braddock and the possible political repercussions on Mr. Donovan’s bid for Mr. Murphy’s current seat. Mr. Donovan has refused, on the advice of his criminal lawyer, to answer any media questions that touch on Speakergate.

Governor Dannel Malloy nodded off after having called upon Mr. Donovan to make himself available for media interrogations; even God sometimes sleeps, thank God.

Mr. Malloy’s chief concern is to ensure the passage of the“roll your own” tax. After passing the tax increase to end all tax increases at the beginning of his term, the state budget – never in balance – once again is wading into the red, and more taxes are necessary to satisfy the ravenous appetite of the governor, the Democratic majority in the General Assembly and Mr. Malloy’s Malloyalists. Ben Barnes, the governor’s Office of Policy Management (OPM) chief, grows leaner and hungrier every day. The administration is depending upon Donovan factotum Brendan Sharkey, the Speaker’s handpicked replacement, to speed the plow during the upcoming special session, and he will not disappoint. Come Hell, high water or FBI investigations, Mr. Malloy will have his tax.

This is is not the first time the FBI had inflicted a sting operation on a member of the General Assembly. Only five years ago, Senator Lou DeLuca was forced to surrender his position in the General Assembly as leader of state Republicans after much ado about something was made concerning a domestic problem. While the Donovan mess has yet to mature, a comparison with the FBI sting operation that ensnared Mr. DeLuca is instructive.

An FBI agent, posing as a thug working for mob connected trash magnate James Galante, offered to“take care” of Mr. DeLuca’s son in law; in mob-speak, “take care of” and “bump off” are considered equivalent locutions. A Courant report at the time tells us: “On June 4, 2007, Senator DeLuca pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor threatening charge, received a suspended sentence, and was ordered to pay a fine. On June 12, 2007, DeLuca announced he would step down as leader of the Senate Republicans and was replaced by 28th District Senator John McKinney, son of late Congressman Stewart McKinney.”

Early in the DeLuca affair, Executive Director of the Connecticut Citizen Action Group (CCAG) Tom Swam urged the Senate to investigate Mr. DeLuca“to dispel public doubts and suspicions, according to a report in the Waterbury Republican American published on CCAG’s internet site. Mr. Swan, recently chosen by Mr. Donovan to replace his fired campaign director, had sensed a fatal hesitancy in the General Assembly: “I think there is a hesitancy to act." Mr. Swan wrote Senate President Donald E. Williams Jr. and Senate Minority Leader John McKinney asking them to appoint a bipartisan committee to look into the DeLuca affair.

Although Mr. DeLuca was yet under investigation by the FBI, the General Assembly began a hearing to nudge Mr. DeLuca from the Senate. The co-chairmen of the investigating committee were senators Martin Looney, now a Democratic Majority Leader, and Andrew Roraback, now the Republican Party nominee for the 5t5h District i8n the U.S. Congress. Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz, tail spinning at the time into a full throated condemnation mode, made it plain that one of the purposes of the hearing would be to force the resignation of Mr. DeLuca:

“Because of Senator DeLuca’s unwillingness to do the right thing, Senate President Pro Tem Donald Williams and Senate Minority Leader John McKinney had no choice but to call for the formation of this committee. I applaud both Sen. Williams and McKinney for creating a bi-partisan process for dealing with misconduct of its members.

“It’s unfortunate that Sen. DeLuca is making a bad situation worse by not resigning now. His actions will hit taxpayers in the wallet and further erode public trust in government officials, just as the state is preparing for municipal elections. DeLuca’s actions only increase the distrust and disgust many people have for their government and that results in, among other things, low voter turnout.”

Then Representative Edith Prague added her voice and prestige to the crowd insistantly calling for the resignation of Mr. DeLuca. This writer was among the first columnists to call for Mr. DeLuca’s resignation. The integrity of the Senate was the chief concern of the now retired Mrs. Prague. Mr. DeLuca, she insisted, should be questioned on oath by the Senate investigating committee to insure, under threat of perjury, that the senator would tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth concerning his domestic affairs. The six member investigating committee, Mrs. Prague stressed, had been too patient with Mr. DeLuca:

“His resignation is absolutely required to maintain the integrity of the Senate. His testimony -- arguing whether it should be under oath or not under oath -- was absolutely outrageous. There should have been no question that his testimony and the questions and answers should be under oath. I was very upset watching that hearing, thinking what a mockery of the Senate and the bipartisan committee it was. ... I feel the committee is not being tough. Would he have that option in court? I don't think so. That man should resign from the Senate, and if he doesn't resign, we should expel him. If they don't vote to expel him, I will vote `no' on reprimand or censure.''

One cannot help but ask “Where is the sense of urgency in the Speakergate controversy?” Naturally, one would not expect a sense of urgency from Mr. Swan, who now finds himself on the staff of his old friend Mr. Donovan, but what of the other players in the General Assembly? Why has no one called for a hearing to investigate the corrupt and illegal activity swirling about the Speaker of the House?

Mrs. Prague’s strong moral voice is lost to the House now that she is no longer a member, but many of the other government officials who counseled Mr. DeLuca to leave office so that the honor of the General Assembly might be preserved are still walking the hallowed halls of the Capitol or running for re-election.

Is no one disturbed that a flaccid response from Democraticleaders in the General Assembly has anesthetized the moral outrage that should arise when a Speaker of the House is forced by an FBI inquiry to fire his arrested finance director, as well as aides identified in an affidavit as co-conspirators in a plot that besmirches the honor of the institution served by those who in the past rightly proceeded to call for a legislative hearing in a previous FBI investigation against Mr. DeLuca?

To be sure, it is important not to jump the gun. Mr. Donovan has not been advised that he is a target of an FBI investigation, the trip wire that did in the DeLuca case and should in very similar cases arouse the enmity of legislators concerned with the honor of the General Assembly.

Mr. McKinney has done well to call upon Mr. Donovan to surrender his position as Speaker. Others also have done so. Why has this seed fallen on such morally exhausted and parched ground?

While the FBI investigation is still in its larval stage, it is not too soon to demand that Mr. Donovan should leave his post as Speaker. Should Mr. Donovan decline to do so, the General Assembly is not without sanctions. The House especially might open a hearing so that members of the General Assembly may put questions to Mr. Donovan under oath – for precisely the reasons stated by Mrs. Prague. If under these circumstances Mr. Donavan’s lawyers advise him to avoid answering questions that may impact upon a possible criminal proceeding, he can avail himself of his Fifth Amendment right to decline to answer such questions on the grounds that any answer may incriminate him. For reasons that remain obscure, Mr. Donovan’s staff have brought dishonor upon every legislator in the General Assembly. The state legislature has a moral and institutional obligation to defend its own honor, and that defense, as was shown in the DeLuca case, need not wait upon the completion of the FBI’s case.

Obama’s Mindszenty Moment

Cardinal József Mindszenty was the Primate of Hungary and the Archbishop of Esztergom, the seat of the head of the Roman Catholic Church in Hungary, who took refuge in the American Embassy in order to prevent the communists who had imprisoned him from deporting him.

Accused of treason, conspiracy and other offenses against the newly formed communist government, the cardinal, wise in the ways of fascist and communist interrogators, took the precaution before his arrest of writing a note denying he had been involved in any conspiracy and informing much of the world that any confession he might make as a result of duress would be fraudulent.

The always inventive communists accused the cardinal, among other charges, of having orchestrated the theft of Hungary's crown jewels, including the Crown of Saint Stephen, with the explicit purpose of crowning Otto von Habsburg emperor of Eastern Europe. Under duress the cardinal confessed he had schemed to remove the Communist government; that he had planned a Third World War, and that, once this war was won by the Americans, he himself would assume political power in Hungary.

Cardinal Mindszenty was imprisoned and tortured by both fascists and communists. Towards the end of his life, he wanted his bones to sweeten the soil of his homeland, but his communist captors had other ideas. The cardinal, always a burr in the side of the totalitarians, soon became an inconvenience to then President Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, the architect of Mr. Nixon’s policy of détente with the Soviet Union.

After much diplomatic agony, the cardinal was brought to Vienna by the Pope, Mr. Nixon having told the cardinal that it was best he bow to his fate. The primate’s seat in Hungary was vacated by the Pope in December 1973, and cardinal Mindszenty was stripped of his titles. Two years later, at the age of 83, he died in Vienna. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the liberation of Hungary from Soviet tyranny, the cardinal’s remains, repatriated to Hungary by the country’s new democratically elected government, were interred in the basilica in Esztergom.

During the same time span, Mr. Nixon had become embroiled in the Watergate tar patch and, under threat of impeachment in 1974, he bowed to his fate. Hammered to his knees by the unfolding scandal, Mr. Nixon asked Mr. Kissinger to pray with him. While Cardinal Mindszenty had been a casualty of détente, Mr. Nixon fell to his knees a casualty of an always unforgiving ironfisted history.

If Hollywood were not little more than a politically petulant self-indulgent fantasy machine, the “Great Escape” of Chen Guangcheng from China’s fascist thugs would make a stirring film. Chen is telegenic, young, courageous, and the anti-hero of years of stale, soulless, propagandistic, Orwellian blather.

As a means of controlling population, Chinese fascists have for years resorted to forced abortion. Winston Churchill used to say that the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. Not satisfied with controlling the means of production, Chinese fascist are able to dominate their world by determining precisely who lies in the cradle.

Protesting forced abortion and the mistreatment of women under China’s misogynistic “leaders” earned Chen a rare red badge of courage. After the blind, self-taught lawyer began to advocate on behalf of victims of abusive practices such as forced abortions by China's planned parenthood officials, he was tried in 2006 on trumped up charges -- damaging property and "organizing a mob to disturb traffic" in a protest -- and sentenced to four years and three months in prison.

A blind self-taught lawyer, Chen evaded guards who had kept him under house arrest for more than 18 months in a small eastern village and made his way to Beijing on April 22. On Friday, Chen sent the following message via YouTube to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao:

"They broke into my house, and more than a dozen men assaulted my wife. They pinned her down and wrapped her in a comforter, beating and kicking her for hours. They also similarly violently assaulted me… As you see, I have escaped.”

Chen’s “Great Escape” has occurred, unfortunately, just as President Barack Obama and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao are to sit down and discuss matters of moment in the world. Mr. Obama, according to one report,“was tight-lipped about the whereabouts of escaped Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng and his potential impact on the discussions to be held this week in Beijing.”

Asked whether Chen was under U.S. Embassy protection, the president responded during a joint news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda at the White House:

"Obviously, I'm aware of the press reports on the situation in China, but I'm not going to make a statement on the issue. What I would like to emphasize is that every time we meet with China, the issue of human rights comes up.”

The issue of human rights, it may be recalled, also came up during the Mindszenty affair, a tiresome subject really. The main point in such international meet and greets is that the leaders involved in the pointless propaganda displays should make valiant attempts to snatch détente from the ragged jaws of history.

They are not always successful.

Eric Holder, The First African-American Nixon

The important thing to remember about Watergate – other than the notorious cover-up, the stonewalling, the raft of lies told to the media, the imperious claims of “executive privilege” – is that nobody died there.

Some of the principal presidential miscreants responsible for Watergate were rounded up, paraded before various congressional committees and suitably harassed by the media. Some of them sang to avoid a term in jail, others went to the hoosegow. A grand jury indicted the “Watergate Seven” – President Richard Nixon’s Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Attorney General John Mitchell, Charles Colson, Gordon C. Strachan, Robert Mardian and Kenneth Parkinson -- in March of 1974, and Mr. Nixon was secretly named as an unindicted co-conspirator. Mr. Nixon, Time Magazine said, was undergoing “daily Hell and very little trust.”

The fires of Hell were stoked and the trust disappeared altogether when a “smoking gun” tape was produced showing Mr. Nixon approving a plan to cover up a break-in at Democratic headquarters by his own operatives. Mr. Nixon’s own lawyers said of the tape that it “proved that the President had lied to the nation, to his closest aides, and to his own lawyers – for more than two years." Shortly after the tape came to light, a contingent of notable Republicans, Barry Goldwater among them, persuaded the president to resign his office.

The unraveling of Watergate began in 1973 after Chief Minority Counsel Fred Thompson asked White House assistant Alexander Butterfield in front of a live television audience whether he was "aware of the installation of any listening devices in the Oval Office of the President?" Following Butterfield’s disclosure of the taping system, the tapes were subpoenaed by both the special prosecutor and the U.S. Senate. Claiming executive privilege as President of the United States, Mr. Nixon refused to release them. When the special prosecutor insisted, he was summarily fired. Access to the tapes was decided in July of 1974 by the Supreme Court, which ruled unanimously that claims of executive privilege were void.

When the curtain was rung down on the Watergate scandal, 69 government officials had been charged and 48 were found guilty. It was a glorious mess that began with a presidential approved plan to bug Democratic Party headquarters and ended with the destruction of a president.

But no one died.

Currently the U.S. Senate is investigating a botched operation in which Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was murdered in December 2010 by persons whose guns were supplied to them courtesy of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The bureau, operating under the auspices of the Justice Department, lost track of more than 1,400 weapons sold to low-level straw purchasers believed to be supplying Mexican drug gangs and other criminals. About half the weapons connected to suspects in the investigation were recovered, some of which were utilized in crime scenes in both Mexico the United States. Terry was murdered in Nogales, Arizona. Mr. Terry’s family has advised the U.S. government that if it does not respond to its inquiries concerning Mr. Terry’s murder, it will face a $25 million lawsuit.

When asked at a Senate hearing whether his assistants, Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler or Assistant Attorney Lanny Breuer, the head of the department's Criminal Division, ever authorized gunwalking or the tactics employed in Fast and Furious, Holder said not to his knowledge: "Not only did I not authorize those tactics, when I found out about them I told the field and everybody in the United States Department of Justice that those tactics had to stop. That they were not acceptable and that gunwalking was to stop. That was what my reaction [was] to my finding out about the use of that technique."

Questioned as to whether he had been forthright in responding to requests of the House Oversight and Government Relations Committee led by Chairman Darrell Issa, a California Republican, Mr. Holder assured the committed, "There's no attempt at any kind of cover-up. We're not going to be hiding behind any kind of privileges or anything.”

At the same time, Mr. Holder pointedly refused in written testimony before the investigating committee to produce “additional deliberative materials about the response to congressional oversight or media requests that postdate the commencement of congressional review.”

And his rational for refusing to disclose information demanded by Congress is that such disclosure would “chill” relations between the executive and legislative branches “if our internal communications concerning our responses to congressional oversight were disclosed to Congress” and perhaps violate “the constitutionally-protected separation of powers.”

Mr. Holder’s written statement might easily have been composed by some legal functionary in the Nixon administration prior to the disclosure of the “smoking gun” tape:

“As I testified in a previous hearing, the Department does not intend to produce additional deliberative materials about the response to congressional oversight or media requests that postdate the commencement of congressional review. This decision is consistent with the long-standing approach taken by the Department, under both Democratic and Republican administrations, and reflects concerns for the constitutionally-protected separation of powers.

“Prior administrations have recognized that robust internal communications would be chilled, and the Executive Branch’s ability to respond to oversight requests thereby impeded, if our internal communications concerning our responses to congressional oversight were disclosed to Congress. For both Branches, this would be an undesirable outcome. The appropriate functioning of the separation of powers requires that Executive Branch officials have the ability to communicate confidentially as they discuss how to respond to inquiries from Congress. I want to note that the separation of powers concerns are particularly acute here, because the Committee has sought information about open criminal investigations and prosecutions. This has required Department officials to confer about how to accommodate congressional oversight interests while also ensuring that critical ongoing law enforcement decision-making is not compromised, and is free from even the appearance of political influence. Such candid internal deliberations are necessary to preserve the independence, integrity, and effectiveness of the Department’s law enforcement activities and would be chilled by disclosure to Congress of such materials. Just as we have worked to accommodate the Committee’s legitimate oversight needs, I trust that the Committee will equally recognize the Executive Branch’s constitutional interests and will work with us to avoid further conflict on this matter.”

The Senate investigating committee has pledged to press on. What the committee may need is a Watergate “deep throat,” a more courageous and steadfast news media, and perhaps a little assistance from ethically upright Democratic U.S. Senators such as newly installed Senator Richard Blumenthal who, as Attorney general of Connecticut, had been intolerant of law breakers, constitutional scoffers and morally disoriented politicians.

Libya, Connecticut’s Congressional Delegation And The War Powers Resolution

Where were you in 1973?

The Congress of the United States in 1973 was hard at work hammering out the War Powers Resolution, a joint act permitting the president of the Unites States, Richard Nixon at the time, to send the armed forces of United States into action only after obtaining the authorization of the legislative branch of government. An exception was allowed under the resolution if the United States were to come under direct attack or a serious threat of attack.

The War Powers Resolution was an attempt by congress to snatch back from the executive department a presumed constitutional power that had eroded after World War II. During the Korean War, euphemistically called a “conflict,” and the Vietnam War, the United States had marched off to battle without obtaining from congress “a declaration of war.”

Passed by the two-thirds vote in Congress necessary to overcome Mr. Nixon’s veto, the War Powers Resolution required presidents to notify Congress within 48 hours of committing armed forces to military action. The measure also prevented troops from remaining in service in an active military theatre for more than 60 days without an a congressional authorization of the use of military force or a formal declaration of war.

No sooner did the War Powers Resolution emerge from the congressional egg than it came under intense scrutiny by those who claimed, for a variety of reasons, that the resolution was unconstitutioal. The power to make war, some argued persuasively, was not an enumerated power, and the resolution, it was said, failed to make the proper distinction between “declaring” a war and “commencing” a war.

Since its passage in 1973, presidents have drafted reports to congress when appropriate stating that a commitment of troops to a live war theatre is “consistant with” the War Powers Act, thus satisfying the executive department position that the congressional resolution is unconstitutional. Since pasage of the resolution, presidents have submitted 118 reports to congress. However constitutionally defective The War Powers Act may be, the congressional instrument has been fairly effective when invoked in requiring the president to keep congress in the loop whenever when troops are sent to various hot spots in the world to do the bidding of, say, the United Nations.

In 2007, Illinois Senator Barack Obama was interviewd by the Boston Globe and asked, “In what circumstances, if any, would the president have constitutional authority to bomb Iran without seeking a use-of-force authorization from Congress?”

It would not fall within the constitutional authority of the president, Mr. Obama replied, "to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.” While the president has a duty to protect and defend the United States as commander in chief, “History has shown us time and again, however, that military action is most successful when it is authorized and supported by the Legislative branch. It is always preferable to have the informed consent of Congress prior to any military action.”

Asked about the constitutional propriety of ordering a strike on Iran’s nuclear capabilities, a situation that involved no direct threat against the United States, Mr. Obama replied, “As for the specific question about bombing suspected nuclear sites, I recently introduced S.J. Res. 23, which states in part that ‘any offensive military action taken by the United States against Iran must be explicitly authorized by Congress.’”

That was then.

Libya presents no direct threat to the United States and, unlike Iran, it voluntarily agreed to give up the possibility of producing nuclear weapons a few years ago. Mr. Obama, who asserted in a congressional resolution HE INTRODUCED four years ago that the president should obtain the authorization of congress when bombing a nation that presents no immediate threat to the United States, has ordered the bombing of Libya after consulting the United Nations rather than the U.S. Congress.

The Libyan intervention has passed muster with Connecticut’s newest senator. Dick Blumenthal, who characterized the intervention as “prudent, decisive action -- with limited scope and duration -- that we are undertaking along with our NATO allies… requested by the Arab League and supported strongly by the UN.”

Mr. Blumenthal, formerly Connecticut’s attorney general, neither mentioned the War Powers Resolution nor gave the slightest indication that it played a part in his approval of Mr. Obama’s intervention. Other members of Connecticut’s congressional delegation, however, have expressed serious reservations. The “first 48 to 72 hours [of sustained bombing] don't look like a supportive role," said U.S. Rep Joe Courtney. Mr. Courtney recommended that the congress, then on a one week recess, be called back into session so that it could be given the opportunity to question top administration officials.

Rep. John Larson registered “deep concern.” The congressman was concerned with a possible ground war and even went so far as to mention the “V” word: “While the president has been very clear that this is not their intention, that wasn't the intention when we sent advisors into Vietnam either.” Having convened a conference to discuss the Libyan intervention, the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, according to one report, “said there was broad consensus among House Democrats of the need for an official congressional briefing. There was ‘a great deal of skepticism about the time, the mission, the purpose,’ he said.”

The war Powers Resolution, it hardly needs to be said, does not require the president of the United States to seek the approval of the United Nations before committing U.S. troops in a hot war. Because the president committed troops without so much as a wink in the direction of congress, it is doubtful that his “prudent action” is even “consistent with” the War Powers Resolution.

The New Poor And The New Social Order

There are actually two social-political orders, conservative and liberal, one of which, depending upon one’s ideological proclivities, apparently has been constructed by the devil. Both views are rooted in sociological perceptions.

A dependable sociology will reason from facts, which are, according to Jim Manzi writing in National Affairs, both prophetic and distressing.

Surveying the last half century, Mr. Manzi can not help but notice a deplorable cultural bifurcation: “Increasingly, our country is segregated into high-income groups with a tendency to bourgeois norms, and low-income groups experiencing profound social breakdown.”

Mr. Manzi traces the collapse of bourgeois morality to a longstanding academic and avant garde assault on traditional social norms associated with the left in the 1960’s. By the 1970’s, “attitudes and behaviors began to change on a mass scale.” But every radical social action leads ineluctably to an equal and opposite reaction; and the resistance, when it arrived, was both economic and social.

Beginning with the Nixon administration and trailing into the Reagan administration, the reaction concerned itself with questions of social cohesion and stability, inextricably linked, conservatives and libertarians argued at the time, with the promotion of economic growth and vitality.

The partly successful response did not touch what Manzi calls “the other side of the coin.” The animated opposition failed to notice that economic dynamism could be “harmful to social cohesion.” Inexorably, “the cultural foundations of democratic capitalism were collapsing. Crime rates, illegitimacy, drug use, and many other measures of social dysfunction were all on the rise, seemingly without limit.”

Later in the decade and continuing through today, American society re-normalized, but the new normal is different than the old normal:

“To begin with, certain strands of the old bourgeois consensus have frayed, and others have simply disappeared, at least for some parts of the population. The wealthier and better-educated segments of our society, for example, have re-established the primacy of stable families and revived their intolerance of crime and public disorder. But they have combined this return to tradition with very non-traditional attitudes about sex, masculinity, and overt piety.”

Most importantly, the partial social restoration did not trickle down to what the well-to-do used to call, disparagingly, the lower orders. Among the wealthier and better educated segments of American society today, the primacy of stable families and a healthy intolerance of crime and public disorder has revived; not so among the poor. Consider:

 “Women without high-school diplomas are now about three times as likely to divorce within ten years of their first marriage than their college-educated counterparts… the estimated percentage of 15-year-olds living with both of their biological parents is far lower in the United States than in Western Europe.” In 1965, “almost no mothers with any level of education reported that they had never been married. While this is still true of mothers who have finished college, only 3 percent of whom were never married, the figure among mothers with no more than a high school education and incomes below $20,000 is an astounding 25 percent. About 70% of African-American children — as well as most Hispanic children — are born to unmarried mothers.”

Among the middle and upper classes, what Manzi calls “the Old Wasp Ascendency” has been reconstructed on much different platforms:

“Political correctness serves the same basic function for this cohort that ‘good manners’ did for an earlier elite; environmentalism increasingly stands in for the ethic of controlling impulses so as to live within limits; and an expensive, competitive school culture — from pre-K play groups up through graduate school — socializes the new elite for constructive competition among peers. These Americans have even re-created the old WASP aesthetic preference for the antique, authentic, and pseudo-utilitarian at the expense of vulgar displays of wealth. In many cases, they live in literally the same homes as the previous upper class.”

This social paradigm, appropriate for a vigorous capitalistic economy, serves the new elite well enough. The old WASP elite, supported by a much different moral, religious and sociological matrix, was able to pass along prosperity and well-being to those on a lower rung of the social latter. It is very much an open question whether the new order is capable of showering similar blessings upon the fatherless 70 percent of African American children who receive very different messages from their subcultures, sociological offshoots of the anarchic 1960s.

Mommy, Where Do Stories Come From?

To be just and honest, the noble ambition of credible journalism, it should be said up front that Tom Foley does not, or rather did not, beat his wife; neither is Ned Lamont a racist.

That is the undeclared imputation in two recent stories: one involving Foley, the Republican Party nominee for governor, and the other involving Lamont, now locked in a primary battle with former Mayor of Stamford Dan Malloy.

In the quarter decade old Foley story, the perp momentarily blocked his wife from leaving a driveway and disputed with her through a couple of stop signs, after which both were arrested. The matter was settled privately, charges were dropped, and the details of the case were not shared with the news media. A messy divorce is no walk through a rose garden, especially when the two former lovebirds quarrel over visitation procedures involving a young child.

The Foley story is, relatively speaking, old and hoary; the Lamont story is somewhat fresher.

Lamont, according to this one, was sued in 2002 by an African American fellow, an executive in the Delaware corporate offices of Lamont Digital Systems who felt, according to a Courant story, that he had been “’maliciously” fired after being denied stock, bonuses and commissions from sales activities.”

The African American fellow, asserting he was let go for racial reasons, figured the matter could have been righted if Lamont kindly surrendered to him a million dollars. The suit was settled privately in 2003; which is to say, the particulars of the dispute were not shared with the news media. The “secret” arrangements in both cases were secret because the principals involved declined to share their pain with the world, and the arrangements made satisfied all the parties involved, as well as the adjudicating authority.

But there is something about a secret that journalists do not love, particularly when it is held close to the chests of people who want to govern states.

Both stories, now in the public domain, have caused frayed relations between the three Republicans and two Democrats vying for governor because no one but the reporter who first released the information knows its provenance, and he is not likely to blow his sources to settle quarrels bubbling up in the Republican and Democratic gubernatorial camps. Reporters are generally circumspect and overly protective concerning their sources. The one piece of information flowing out of Watergate that remained a mystery for years after ex-President Nixon was tucked safely beneath the sod was – who was “Deepthroat?” Eventually, “Deepthroat” outted himself. Had he not done so, the world even now might be turning over in its mind the dread suspicion that it was Henry Kissinger who killed Cock Robin.

Both stories cited above are invitations to probe the general question: Does it matter where political dirt comes from?

To historians, who are sticklers for facts, the source of information always matters. And certainly the person whose ribs are poked with the knife would dearly like to have his curiosity appeased. But in journalism, a source is not likely to be revealed by the journalist unless the stream of information provided is false or malicious or directly intended to poison the political well – in which case, it matters a great deal where the information comes from. Presumably, the responsible journalist will have checked other reliable sources before he releases the politically damaging information. Even in dire circumstances, a journalist whose well has been poisoned by a bad source still may be reluctant to name names.

Why so?

Because he does not want to interrupt the flow of information coming his way from a source who would be unwilling to disgorge raw untested truth if it were certain that his anonymity could not be guaranteed by the journalist. As in a war, a great deal of raw political information comes from opposing political camps, but it does not follow that because candidate X has loosed the sluice gates on candidate Y, the information provided is, for that reason, unusable. Even the blackest lie carries within itself a grain of truth that, planted in terra firma, may, like the biblical mustard seed, though it is the smallest of seeds, grow into a tree large enough to provide in its spreading branches a home for all the chirping birds of the air.

Dodd's Legacy

We think we know what made Dodd not run, but what makes him run? Over the last few months, U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd has been waving goodbye to the senate, a bittersweet farewell occasioned, some think, by plummeting polls and the perception on the part of some of his constituents that he stuck around too long, like some disintegrating, punch-drunk boxer dreaming of his glory days in the ring.

Then again, in the last few months, Dodd has been “born again” – this time as a reformer. Prior to his born-again experience, he was what Roll Call calls “the consummate insider.”

The senator after whom Dodd patterned himself, “lion of the senate” Edward Kennedy, was, to be sure, more “consummate,” beltway lingo indicating the congressional “virtue” of getting your way by playing between the keys of the political organ.

It is said by the chattering class that Dodd is “working on his legacy.” A politician’s legacy is what remains of him after he has left office, history’s verdict on his multifarious career. Someone who has served long in the senate acquires twists and turns that later, when he begins to assemble his legacy, prove useful in guiding the myth makers.

It helps a great deal if the politician is what flappers in the 30’s might call a “smooth talker.” Nixon was not a smoothie, though his career had in it more useful turns than the Mississippi.When Nixon left the presidency in disgrace, he immediately started work on his legacy. He stayed off the firing line and wrote books; soon headhunters in the media were heaping praise upon him, and he died buried under a mound of plaudits. Here and there a few commentators scattered critical remarks over the bones.

Bill Buckley once was asked what the real Nixon was like.

“Which one,” he answered. “There are about four of them.”

Dodd has had what funeral directors might call “a good run.” There were no drowned women in his life, no misplaced cigars. He had an easy time of it with Connecticut’s liberal-to-a-fault media, running afoul of the jaws that bite only when commentators feared he was romancing the right. He was divorced only once, falling far short of Lowell Weicker’s record. Even his fiercest critics would agree Dodd – not to speak of him overmuch in the past tense -- was a nice enough chap. The Ortega brothers appreciated his attentions in Nicaragua; Fidel Castro tossed no barbed words in his direction; and had Castro wannabe Hugo Chavez taken power in Venezuela when Dodd was off schmoozing with the Sandinistas, Chavez would have sniffed no odor of brimstone pouring off the sainted senator.

Dodd will be safe in the hand of his biographers. He need not fear his legacy will be less flattering than that bestowed on Weicker by his biographer in “Maverick,” once reviewed by Managing Editor of the Journal Inquirer Chris Powell under the critical title, “Mr. Bluster Saves The World.”

If the liberal Dodd faltered when he helped to dissolve any remaining restrictions imposed by the Glass-Steagall Act on large financial firms, he recovered somewhat by aggressively supporting President Barack Obama’s Health Care initiative. If he faltered when he supported President George Bush’s war in Iraq, after first opposing intervention in the Persian Gulf, he recovered somewhat by supporting Obama’s often stated campaign promise to bring the troops home from Iraq when doing so would have doomed to failure the military effort in that country -- Bush’s military effort. In yet another political pirouette, Dodd cautiously supported Obama’s war in Afghanistan, sometimes called by disappointed world conquerors “the graveyard of empires.”

The senator's cozy connection with Countrywide was a scar on his reputation. But few seemed to realize that his invaluable assistance to Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac, mortgage lenders too big to fail, may have been equally if not more problematic: One of the reasons large mortgage lenders were too big too fail was that congressional watchdogs such as Dodd and U.S. Rep. Barney Frank winked at their destructive lending practices. Indeed, Both Dodd and Frank rashly encouraged mortgage lenders to dole out tax dollars to recipients who could not afford mortgages.

We are told victory or utter collapse lie ahead of us, depending upon who is doing the telling. But history is not always a tale told by the victors. Sometimes it’s a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. That is more often the case when the powerful among us are permitted to shape their own legacies.